Karma
by SoulSurferfan116
Summary: Stephen finally realizes that he loves Lauren. The only problem is Lauren is now with Jason! What are his thoughts on this situation and what will he do about it... Lauren/Stephen oneshot! Mentions of Lauren/Jason, Stephen/Kristin.. Laguna Beach story takes place in Season 2.. R and R please!


___**KARMA**_

**Disclaimer: I do not own Laguna Beach, or any of the characters mentioned in this story! This is a semi- Lauren/Stephen fic with mentios of Lauren/Jason. This is in Stephen's POV! Don't forget to R and R please...**

There had never been a time when LC wasn't a  
part of my life. Right from the very first moment I was old enough to make  
friends, we'd been the best of friends. It was one of those friendships that you  
could automatically tell would be there for life. Maybe that was what made me  
take it for granted. Lauren Conrad was born gorgeous. It was a simple fact. I  
noticed when I was 13, when I was noticing all girls, I noticed it again when we  
were 15. At 16, things changed and we were kissing before we even really had  
anything more than a friendship, and it was changing our friendship. It was  
changing us as people, it was changing me. And then Kristin Cavallari came  
along, and suddenly at 17, I was losing my best friend and kissing Kristen, but  
at the same time, I never stopped kissing LC.

And once LC found out, what we once had was  
gone, and I was left with regrets. A lot of them. We were best friends in lying  
words but not in practice, and I, stupidly, was wondering how it could all  
change. How we could be best friends at 5. Best friends at 10. Best friends who  
kissed occasionally at 15. And best friends who never talked at 17. But one day  
something made LC start to fight for our friendship, and that was when I knew  
that even though I was dating Kristin, I was going to follow LC to San Francisco  
after we'd graduated, and we were going to become us again. The us we once  
were.

I was the first to arrive in San Francisco, so I got to explore  
first. And all I could think about was not the sad farewell I'd had with Kristin  
before I'd left, but all the places I wanted to show LC once she arrived. And  
that was what drove me to the airport to pick her up, and when she walked out of  
the door, looking so alone I knew I couldn't have been happier anywhere else  
than I was there with her, in San Francisco, a whole new future ahead of us,  
regaining the friendship I thought was gone for good. Once again we were best  
friends, like I'd never kissed Kristin while kissing LC, like LC and I had never  
kissed at all.

And then she told me she was leaving San Francisco not  
long after we'd regained our friendship, leaving me, going back to Laguna for  
reasons I would never know. And on the beach in the cold, I called her weak,  
because in a way it felt like she was running away from all that we had rebuilt,  
and worked for, and fought for, and I was sure that once she was back in Laguna,  
back to her old life and her old stomping ground, it would be the life that I  
wasn't a big part of that she returned to. But I misjudged how much I meant to  
LC, how much our friendship meant to her, and how in love with me she was. I had  
never before noticed, I was blinded by Kristin, blinded by friendship, blinded  
by my own selfishness. I drove her to the airport thinking about the day I'd  
driven to pick her up from there, and was thinking about what the future would  
bring us now that we were apart again.

It was the same blindness a mere  
month later that led me to fly back to Laguna for Valentines, with a surprise  
for the wrong girl. Something made me decide that it was Kristin I wanted to  
share the night with. I knew it before I flew back to Laguna, and the guilt was  
enough to make me not return LC's phone calls until I was home in Laguna, and  
the day I was due to leave I made a surprise visit at her house, a bouquet of  
flowers bigger than the ones I'd given Kristin the night before, to convince  
myself I wasn't playing favourites. And after a hug and a familiar bantering  
conversation, I was back on the plane flying home wondering if I'd spent  
Valentines Day with the right girl after all. LC amazed me like that. She could  
make rethink every decision I made in regards to her and Kristin with a simple  
platonic conversation, platonic conversations we'd been having for our entire  
friendship, for almost our entire lives. With Kristin it was always a trip down  
memory lane, with LC it was always just fun conversations, moving forward each  
time, not backwards. With LC it always left me with constant wonderings of what  
could be and what could've been.

When it came around to LC's birthday, I  
knew I was going home for it. While talking to her on the phone, I asked her  
what she wanted and all she said was Dieter and I. I skipped my Friday classes  
and drove home to Laguna, ready to drive to Mexico that same night for LC's  
birthday. Mexico was exactly like senior years trip to Cabo. It would be another  
case of what happened in Mexico, stayed in Mexico, and I knew something would  
happen. Two rooms, four people, LC and I, best friends who had kissed before,  
had always been bordering on becoming something more but never quite got there.  
We were the best friends our families believed would become lovers and end up  
married, and while we had the lovers part down, I couldn't actually see us  
ending up married, we were just best friends, who kissed and became more  
sometimes, best friends who had gazes that lasted slightly longer than they  
should. And I was right, stealing glances at LC while we were driving back to  
Laguna after the weekend of kisses, hugs, and more between LC and I, not as a  
couple but as best friends who were more for a weekend. Something happened in  
Mexico, like always. Then Dieter made a comment about something both LC and I  
had avoided talking about for the weekend. Not the purple dinosaur in the room  
that was Kristin, but the yellow hippopotamus that was the fact that I was  
driving back to San Francisco almost as soon as we arrived back in Laguna. And  
watching her eyes blink back tears, I knew it was something she didn't want to  
happen, and after the fun weekend with her in Mexico, I wasn't sure it was  
something I wanted to happen either.

And once again I found myself  
driving back to San Francisco wondering if LC and I would prove our parents  
right and end up married, and I found that there was a lingering feeling of hope  
in my heart that we would, because she was someone I could picture being with  
for a long stretch of time, longer than an on and off 2 years with Kristin, who  
was merely a passing fantasy I couldn't let go of.

So many things changed  
each time I returned to Laguna Beach. My relationship with Kristin changed  
entirely during my first trip back. My friendship turned exactly into what it  
once was with LC during my second. My third trip back ended up in a fling with  
LC in Mexico, and my fourth, well that was ending in heart break.

I was back for the summer, back for good, contemplating a move to LA, where LC was  
also moving to. That wasn't my reason for contemplating that move, my future was  
also part of it. And while making plans with LC for summer vacation, focusing on  
only spending time with her, Dieter and a few of our other classmates that had  
returned home for the summer, a barbeque party at LC's hotel-like house became  
something I'd regret making as one of the plans for the summer.

It started out as our general group, Jen, LC, Dieter and I, joking around,  
preparing food. I offered to barbeque up the food during the party, knowing  
neither of the two girls were particularly good at the task. LC's backyard was a  
pool and a Jacuzzi, where LC and I had fond memories already, despite it only  
being recently new. We'd stood around it while it was just shapes engraved in  
concrete, trying to work out what it would be, we'd swam in it together late at  
night once it was full, talking about the future and what it would bring, we'd  
had water fights trying to reclaim our immaturity that had left us when we left  
high school, and now it would be the place where I realized maybe a future with  
me wasn't part of LC's plan, just as I realized a future with LC was what I  
wanted. It would be the place where I was forced to admit that she no longer  
wanted me, she was no longer the girl who followed me around long after her  
female friends counseled her against it, told her to stop letting me hurt her  
and break her heart while I flaunted my relationship with Kristin in her face  
after using her as a source of comfort every time Kristin and I hit a rough  
patch. I'd taken her for granted so many times, and karma was just waiting to  
bite me on the ass for it.

And at the barbeque, it did. And indirectly,  
Dieter, who had been the one to snap her back to reality and cause her tears on  
our way home from Mexico, tears that I'd never witnessed from the amazingly  
strong LC in our entire 18 years of friendship, was the one who would accelerate  
the speed of my karma. He invited Talan, a friend in Kristin's class, the year  
below us. And he, in turn, brought a friend of his, a guy by the name of Jason  
Wahler. Talan was my karma, Jason was what was biting me in the ass. And it was  
at the barbeque I was forced to witness Jason and LC's playful flirting, up  
close and from the distance, and see her smile as she chased him happily around  
the pool, hear her squeal as she jumped on him and he continued running, almost  
dropping her in the pool where I sat, and as she tried in vain to get the  
cigarette away from Jason's hand. She'd never been a fan of smoking, neither of  
us had, and I knew he'd change for her. I knew that night, that moment, would  
change everything for the three of us.

And when I called her to see what  
she was up to the next day, hoping to hang out like old times, just the two of  
us at her house or my house or even the beach just watching the tide, her mom  
informed me she had gone out on a date with Jason Wahler, in a hot rod that even  
both her parents, one of the richest couples in Laguna Beach, were impressed  
with. And that was when I was forced to lie back down on my bed, let the regrets  
overrun my body and my thoughts until Dieter phoned and I left them behind to  
meet him for dinner, wishing I was just home for the weekend and could drive  
back to San Francisco and avoid what seemed like impending couple-dom of Jason  
and LC.

And even Dieter knew about LC and Jason's date, and it was there  
that I learnt about Jason's player character. I heard about how he cheated  
Jessica, Dieters irritating ex-girlfriend, cheating on her with many nameless  
girls, before settling on Alex Murrel, who he'd then in turn cheated on with  
Jessica. And now he wanted LC, and both Dieter and I were left hoping their date  
wouldn't last, wouldn't work, would just be forgotten about until a high school  
reunion when someone would bring it up with a laugh and a "remember  
when…?"

The next day LC returned my phone call, sounding excited and  
happy and exactly like she used to be before Kristin and I happened, when it was  
just Stephen and LC, best friends who kissed occasionally for fun, when we had  
each others hearts in the simplest sense, before I broke her heart more times  
than any human ever should. The ironic thing about me breaking her heart was  
that I would seriously hurt any guy who ever hurt her, but when it was me I  
didn't even think twice about what I was doing to LC, I just cared about  
Kristin. Kristin was all I saw, and I'm not sure why. Now my world was LC, and  
her world was becoming Jason. She told me she was waiting for Jason to pick her  
up, and that she'd call me back once they got home from his grandparents house,  
and that call never came. It never used to be that way. I was always the one who  
never called her back, forgetting or just pushing it back until she called  
again. And now it was me doing the chasing and her forgetting about me. It was  
karma hitting the big time, and I was beginning to be haunted and taunted by my  
regrets.

It wasn't LA I chose to go to in the end, deciding to return to  
San Francisco, the city where LC and I had patched our tattered friendship and  
came out of it stronger than ever. She was still dating Jason, but I'd phoned  
her and she knew I was going back, and she was home for once, our last hang out  
since all our other summer plans had fallen through for Jason, just like I knew  
in the guilt ridden part of my heart that she had probably thrown away many  
plans back when she wanted me and I never noticed her in the same way, believing  
she would always be there like a bus stop sign.

I pulled up at her house  
and waited for her dad to pick me up on the intercom or for her to let me in. I  
saw her walk past the window and I stuck my tongue out at her, like always. Like  
nothing had changed, like I hadn't suddenly realized that I was in love with LC  
and she was in love with Jason and I was no longer what she wanted, that she'd  
grown up and matured and moved on. That she'd stopped wanting me after I'd let  
her down too many times, broken her heart too many times, and left her hanging  
too many times.

I hugged her tightly once she let me in, wondering if she  
felt what I felt and if she was just using Jason as her excuse to not be hurt by  
me again, and then I followed her outside to the pool area, which always seemed  
to be the place where everything changed in our friendship. I sat down on one of  
the chairs and then I heard her squeal as Jason wrapped his arms around her in a  
soaking wet hug. I watched her smile and kiss him on the lips, momentarily  
forgetting the fact that she had a visitor in the form of her best friend. It  
was making me wonder if it was like that when I was dating Kristin, if that was  
how she felt each time she watched us kiss, heard Kristin whine in the  
irritating Steeee-phen way of hers, every time I was out with her talking on the  
phone to Kristin.

I stood up, my chair scraping against the ground as  
the couple looked up in surprise. LC stood and looked at me curiously as I  
pulled her into a hug, never wanting to let her go.

"Just wanted to say bye. I'm going back to San Francisco  
today." The surprise in her eyes told me she'd forgotten, and that hurt enough  
for me to turn and walk back through her house. I was almost at my truck when I  
heard her behind me.

"I'm sorry… Have a safe trip, okay? I'll see you when  
you're home." And once again I was driving back to San Francisco, regret in my  
heart, regret in the fact I'd chosen the wrong girl three years ago, regret in  
the fact that I'd missed something amazing before my eyes, something Jason  
hadn't missed. Regret at all the chances I'd lost, regret at what could've  
been.


End file.
